Time Out of Joint:tag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-812489959698982512014-01-20T16:21:19-07:00a notebook on cinema, hyperreality, and longing . . .TypePadTime Travel: San Francisco phantom ride (1906)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef019b050eaaa8970d2014-01-20T16:21:19-07:002014-01-20T16:21:19-07:00The Phantom Ride was one of the earliest popular treats of proto-cinema. The camera operator would attach the camera to the front of a train, trolley, or car and give the spectator the illusion of traveling. This "illusion", of course, was one of the reasons why cinema became the dominant...Reno Lauro"Lumiere" by David Lynch (1996)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0148c6972bf1970c2013-03-01T22:31:38-07:002013-03-01T11:41:50-07:00What we commonly call "Lynchian" is not simply his attraction to the macbre, but the way Lynch masterfully plays with time to open us to the possibilities of the transspatial and spiritual (Movement-Image 17). In an excellent little book called Devotional Cinema, filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky says this subversion of our absorption in the temporal opens us up to the possibilities of the depths of our own reality (Devotional Cinema 16). This is a major step in 1) moving beyond the literary quality of cinema towards cinema as a unique artform, and 2) moving beyond a cinema as mere entertainment and consumption.Reno LauroTime Travel: Mark Twain at Stormfield (1909)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef017d414d3235970c2013-02-27T08:28:09-07:002013-02-27T08:43:50-07:00The first half of this short reel also happens to demonstrate the most basic elements of the Time-Image, as described by Gilles Deleuze—the basis of which is a foundational principle in a philosophy of the cinematic image. Remember these are basic ontological truths (truths that deal with the basis of who we are and how we are built as human beings) rather than psychological truths (truth that deal with how we percieve, feel, and understand ourselves and the world):Reno LauroTime Travel: Kodak Test Footage (1922)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef017d40f64ad0970c2013-02-11T13:12:08-07:002013-02-11T13:21:21-07:00Behold, the enduring and ephemeral power of celluloid—the Memory Machine!—to transport us back in time . . .Reno LauroTime Travel: Ischia (1950)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef014e8978d5ba970d2011-06-29T06:38:42-07:002013-02-24T14:27:25-07:00These are a strange mix of propaganda, advertisement, and documentary newsreel shaped by a post-war cinematic sensibility. There is something hypnotic and neo-realist in the way these vignettes are shot and cut, but maybe I'm feeling a twinge nostalgic because I can see my father running the streets as a little boy. How strange are memory and the moving image. I was never meant to experience these images. As though the shadowy images of my fathers memory are now mine too ...these scenes of living in another age. The time is out of joint.Reno LauroPeter Falk (1927-2011)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef014e895ebbd8970d2011-06-24T21:58:28-07:002011-06-24T22:52:00-07:00Most people remember him as Columbo, or as playing himself in Wim Wenders' haunting Wings of Desire. But Falk, along with Ben Gazzara and John Cassavetes, was a hard nose actor who knew how to bring dignity and humanity to a character. Take the time to watch this great trainwreck...Reno LauroTime Travel: Macy's Thanksgiving (1940)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef014e88f74db9970d2011-06-07T07:49:06-07:002011-06-07T07:49:43-07:00Back in the saddle. Much to discuss. In the meantime ... enjoy this trip through time and space. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade - New York, 1939 from standard on Vimeo.Reno LauroTime Travel: vintage color photos of Europe (1906)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0147e169322d970b2011-01-09T12:18:42-07:002011-01-09T12:22:49-07:00see more vintage color photographs from 1906 Europe collected by Mike Shaughnessy view the full collection as a Geocoded gallery The beauty and limitation of photography as a vehicle for time travel ... "... for photography does not create eternity, as art does, it embalms time, rescuing it simply from...Reno LauroTime Travel: Birdsong (2009)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0147e1524256970b2011-01-06T07:13:00-07:002014-08-13T15:27:12-07:00The journey of the Magi imagined by spanish director Albert Serra as an existential sojourn by players unaware of the true magnificence that awaits. "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know...Reno LauroTime Travel: For Auld Lang Syne 2011tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0148c7330602970c2010-12-31T08:23:43-07:002011-01-06T13:55:48-07:00New Years Eve reminds us of our relative experience of time. To a child minutes are like hours; to a man hours like minutes; and to those who have lived to see the void of death swallow most of their generation, a lifetime is but a flickering dream. Cinema is...Reno Lauro